 Born in 1895 in New Jersey – USA
 White Angel Breadline
 Married Paul Schuster Taylor,
sociology professor at the University
of California, in 1935.
- contracted polio as a child (right
leg deformed = disabled)
 Documentary photos.
 Started her career as a fashionable
portrait photographer in San Francisco,
California.
 Was working for the government in 1936
to document the New Deal; a
programme launched by Franklin D.
Roosevelt to help people who were
suffering financial hardship.
to take photos of the Japanese
American community (parked in camps
during WWII (World War Two).
- migrant workers
 The Great Depression.
 The early 1930s were a terribly difficult
period in the USA.
 Financial crisis caused by the 1929 Stock
Market crash.
 Natural disasters: horrific droughts in
some central states.
 More than two million small farmers
could no longer produce food for their
families and became migrant workers.
 Migrant Mother
 One of the most influencial
photographers of the 20th century.
 Brought the plight of ordinary Americans
into the public view.
 Her philosophy: “politics of seeing”.
 Moved by poverty-stricken migrant
farmers
 Worked to draw attention to the crisis
 In 1936: she took her photos to the
editor of the San Francisco News
newspaper. He ran the story that
migrant workers were literally starving
to death in the richest state in the
nation.
 The government sent 10,000 kg of food
aid to the camp.
 GROUPS A&B

After the financial crisis and the Dust Bowl, many farmers had to abandon their farms and became migrant workers. They travelled wherever there might be work on big
farms.
 GROUP A

Many went to California, a rich and fertile state with lots of agriculture. By car…
 GROUPS A & B

…or by walk.
 GROUP A

It shows men lining up to receive bread from a charity distribution.

 GROUP A

The migrants had come to pick up peas but there had been unusually cold weather. The plants froze and the pea crop was lost.

Florence Thompson was 32 and had ten children. They had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields and birds that the children killed. She had just sold
the tires from her car to buy food.
 GROUP B

Many of her photos were unpublished during the war, as they showed a reality many Americans were not happy to witness: American citizens, some of whom had been in
the USA for generations, parked in camps.
 GROUP B

These workers were building ships for the war effort. The workforce was mixed (gender and different ethnicities).

Images of women wielding (manier) industrial tools helped building the image of proud and competent women taking part in the war effort.
 “Politics of seeing”

Dorothea Lange was a committed artist willing to draw attention to social injustice. She shed light on the downtrodden (opprimés), minorities, people who cannot protest /
raise their voice / speak out.

Migrant workers, people in a breadline, Asian-Americans during WWII, black people, women…

Being a women with health problems, Dorothea Lange doubly belonged to minorities. It made her more sensitive to suffering and injustice. She said that she believed her
disability helped her approach her subjects.

It shows art raise people’s awareness on social and political injustices and may even result in concrete action (food aid from the government as a reaction to the “Migrant
Mother” photograph).